Crossfire
by Almasexia
Summary: A debt left in The Hub has plagued New Vegas' liberator for years, and she finally sets out to repay it. But as Evelyn Miller rightly knows, very few problems can be solved in the Wastes without several more coming with it. Post New Vegas, F!Courier and F!LW.
1. An Ally

**It's been over half a year since I last wrote a fanfiction. I found the inspiration to at least start this fanfiction after I replayed all four main games, and wanted to put elements of them all together at once. I doubt I'll be able to regularly update, but I'd like to commit to this. Right now, I probably need to work on adding dialogue into my story, as it feels forced.**

* * *

A unanimous opinion throughout the Mojave Desert was that the Second Battle of Hoover Dam had undoubtedly changed the Mojave forever, whether the person saying that was a regular citizen or one of the families behind Vegas' newfound success. But it wasn't long before the Courier who had ended that five-year stalemate between the Legion and NCR mysteriously disappeared. The Lucky 38 closed its doors once more and again reverted to its derelict, pre-war state.

In the Courier's place was the unique Securitron, Yes-Man. It was widely known that Yes-Man was unable to deny a request, but even if a prospective wastelander with high hopes managed to make it into the Lucky 38, the Courier had made sure that all Securitrons were fully upgraded before she left New Vegas. Some resented her for leaving them in the hands of robot, and the fact she would rather spend money on security for an uninhabited building, but life still continued, as it always had. Vegas remained a relic of the Old World within the Wasteland surrounding it.

While no one was ever sure why the Courier had left the life of luxury she had been granted, or where she had left for, one thing was for certain: wherever the Courier went, trouble would never be too far behind.

* * *

Evelyn stared at her reflection in the grimy mirror of the latest bar she had wound up in. It was cleaner than most of the other bars she had visited since leaving New Vegas, but it was still a dump. Paint and wallpaper were peeling off of the walls, the locks had been removed from the bathroom stalls, and water was leaking onto the floor from a broken sink. The only thing missing was someone so drunk that the line between unconscious and dead was blurred.

Over the sound of a bar fight an NCR radio station played from an old radio. Despite the political arguments and fighting going on in the very foundation of the NCR, the radio station was still encouraging citizens to support their troops and invest. The words reminded her of the pre-war posters of a blonde woman with a strange hat and dress, telling the reader to buy war bonds. Whatever a war bond was, she doubted anyone cared to know anymore.

As she walked out of the bathrooms and into the main room, the bartender smiled at her. No matter how rowdy she became, the he never seemed to complain unless she was driving off other customers. He had given her a bottle of whiskey on the house after she expressed a desire to leave the town and carry on her travels. She didn't care for the gesture; the bottle had simply been stored in her pack for later. Though until the dust storm that raged outside calmed down, Evelyn would be stuck in the bar.

Her fellow patrons were becoming increasingly agitated, as being stuck in a bar that smelt like vodka and vomit wasn't somewhere anyone wanted to be.

"How about you down your anger with something? Smithy has a wide selection," a waitress smiled. Evelyn shook her head and turned away in response. Rifling through her bag, she pulled out three full bottles of whiskey and kept them there until the woman left.

Under her breath, Evelyn muttered, "Smithy can shove his watered down piss up his ass," as she put the whiskey back. She checked her Pip-Boy and grimaced – The Hub was still thirty miles away. If she were able to travel as fast as she could, it would still take her at least four days to get to The Hub.

She turned off her Pip-Boy and dragged herself to the room she had rented. The moment she was rid of this town and back into the wastes would be a blessing. Townies were too self-absorbed in their safety to give a shit about the rest of the world. Evelyn shoved her backpack underneath the bed and bolted the door shut tight, before lying down on the lumpy mattress and quickly falling to sleep.

Sunlight streamed through the unwashed windows in spots where there was not enough dust to make it completely opaque. The sound of wind that had rattled the bar for the past three days had completely disappeared, leaving blissful silence in its place. It was certainly welcome; her head felt like someone had hit it with a hammer.

According to her Pip-Boy, the time was 6:32 in the morning. She picked up her leather armour from the side table and quickly changed.

The jukebox that had been happily playing music for three nights prior was flickering on and off in a last attempt to stay alive. One of the barmaids was kneeling beside it, trying to hook the exposed wire ends to a fission battery. Evelyn turned away and headed out the door to the desolate street.

NCR taxes had hit towns like this one hard. Some people had taken to living together to limit the tax charged for basic living, shops were running out of stock due to the caravans being killed by raiders due to the lack of security along highways. The government had all but forgotten about its people between the First and Second battles of Hoover Dam, and now it was feeling the consequences.

By all accounts, the lands once controlled by Caesar's Legion weren't faring better either. Like they NCR, the Legion hadn't lost many of its main figures, but there were reports of a fragile state from the caravaneers. Many feared that America was once again going to crumble and fall back into the dark days that had come after the Great War. With nowhere else to turn, it seemed that they were right.

In the end the Wasteland would come back from it. To Evelyn, old men in suits who thought they had the right to dictate what people could and couldn't do would get what was coming to them. They threw words at each other in an empty room in Shady Sands, but in the end it didn't matter. People were right when he said the only difference between Caesar's Legion and the NCR was the fact that the NCR weren't dressing up as Romans.

Evelyn looked up from her pondering and began heading towards the town gate. The two men guarding the entrance didn't give her a second look as she adjusted her backpack and left the town behind. Before she knew it the town had been swallowed up by the never ending desert. She prepared herself to be attacked by the horrors that lurked in the wastes.

* * *

The peak of the California sun scorched the leather armour that was now painfully stuck to Evelyn's skin. Beads of sweat rolled down her face, and she had decided to pull on a bandana to keep her hair from sticking to her forehead and making her even more uncomfortable. The radio on her Pip-Boy could only just catch the signal of a nearby radio station, but she could only just make out the songs attempting to be heard over the static.

The sound of a gun cocking behind her brought her to a dead halt. Two raiders appeared from her left, both with their weapons aimed at her.

A female raider approached her and gave her a simple demand, "Hand over whatever you've got in the bag, and I won't blow your fucking brains out"

Evelyn grimaced in disgust at the woman's face. She couldn't have been older than twenty, yet her face was already scarred from countless fights and years of chem usage. A gash on her arm was a putrid green from a festering infection. Very few raiders knew how to perform even the basics of medicine, so most turned to using more chems to alleviate the pain. This woman was no exception.

"Are you deaf? I don't care if I shoot you or not, I'm getting that backpack," she jerked her arm and moved the gun closer to Evelyn's head.

"Calm down, at least give me a second to actually get it off," Evelyn snapped back. The raider was taken aback from her sudden response. Seizing her chance, Evelyn grabbed the raider by the neck and twisted it with all the force she could. A sickening crunch followed, and she crumpled to the floor in a heap.

Her male accomplice was quick to shoot at Evelyn. He screamed in a fit of rage, followed by words that she couldn't make out. Evelyn jumped to cover behind a rusted car as her attacker attempted to shoot her from the front of the car. She sharply inhaled through her teeth when one of the bullets pierced her arm and blood quickly began to spurt from the wound.

The click of his gun signalled that the raider had used his supply of bullets. While fazed from the shot, Evelyn jumped to her feet and drew a 9mm from her holster. She was not a good aim, but the raider was preoccupied with attempting to find another gun to use and was desperately scrambling on the floor. She used the chance to send a bullet straight into his head.

Chunks of bone splattered to the floor first, followed by blood and brain. The man jerked for several seconds before finally falling to the ground, leaving blood to pour from his head and onto the old tarmac. Evelyn sat behind the car in the shade and began to pull the shards of the bullet from her arm out with a pair of tweezers. A quick burst of flame from her lighter gave enough time to cauterise the wound and pull as much as she could out.

At times like these, she wished she had a companion to follow her into the wastes and help her when she got into predicaments that ended up with her pulling lead out of her arm. Any who were once willing to help her remained in the Mojave Desert. She would have taken someone along, but everyone had their own goals, and no one planned to enter NCR territory anytime soon. Especially not Veronica.

Evelyn chastised herself for thinking about Veronica. To her, the Brotherhood of Steel was her family, she had every right to wish to stay in the Mojave, even if they didn't accept her. It wasn't as if they were going to be seeing each other anytime soon. There was no point dwelling on something that didn't matter anymore.

Satisfied with the treatment of her arm, Evelyn pulled the body of the nearest raider to her and began to search his pockets. Both of them had little more than a small pouches of caps attached to their belts. She fumbled through her bag to find her own bag of caps and threw the caps in.

She got to her feet and steadied herself on the car. A relic of Pre-War times. Sometimes Evelyn wished to find someone who had lived before the Great War, just so she could punch them in the face for not appreciating what they had while it was there.

The sound of boots crunching against the desert rick made her head instinctively jerk up. A woman, laser rifle in hand, was slowly approaching her. The combat armour she wore had likely been green before it had been plastered with mud, blood, and dirt. Her thick-rimmed glasses were the only things that weren't dirty.

Evelyn tentatively headed towards her. If the woman hadn't shot her by now, there was a chance that she didn't want to attack her straight away.

An interrogative tone dominated her tone as Evelyn confronted the woman from afar, "Where the hell did you come from?"

"Over there," she responded, pointing down the road and towards where Evelyn had come from, "You're headed to The Hub?"

"What's it to you?" She demanded, "I don't even know your name."

"Adela. Adela Connolly. I overheard you talking about going to The Hub a few days ago. After your scuffle with those raiders I thought that you would like some company," she sheathed her laser rifle and resumed walking towards her, "Two's a company."

"Evelyn Miller. If we're going to travel together, I'd like to get to The Hub before Tuesday,"

Even with company, Evelyn could still retreat to her own thoughts. They were an uneasy duo, certainly, but something was making Evelyn fond of Adela already. With the harshness of the Wastes, the respite of a companion was something she had been craving for weeks. She briefly looked to the floor and smiled. Maybe this one wouldn't end so bad.

* * *

 **It will definitely be a challenge to update this fanfiction regularly. Like everyone else on this site, I have commitments. However since I've finally gotten over an awful case of writer's block that plagued me for months, I think I can have a chapter every month or so. I do have the basic outline for this, so hopefully I will be able to finish.**

 **Until next time!**


	2. Trouble

It was an hour before either of them spoke again. Save for a few radscorpions scattered around the road, the journey had been uneventful and the silence maddening. Evelyn was content with being quiet for the whole journey, she preferred to simply be in the company in someone else rather than talking to them. But Adela, with her different upbringing, was itching to speak.

"So why are you headed to The Hub?" she finally asked. Evelyn turned to look at her and was met with Adela's cheery face.

She struggled to find the words to respond. This woman didn't need to get involved in her personal business, "I was born there. I just… there's something I need to settle. It doesn't sit right with me. And yourself?"

"I wanted to get away from DC. It was home, but too much had happened there for me to bear being there anymore," she sighed, "I once met someone who used to live in The Hub. The way he talked about it made it seem more appealing."

"As in big, old capital city Washington? Shit, that's a long way away," she responded. Evelyn considered asking her what made living in DC bad enough to trek across America and settle in the desert, but she decided against it. If she didn't want anyone poking around her personal business, Adela probably didn't either.

"Yeah, it is," Adela nodded. She looked up and smiled, "Thank God, a building."

A diner stood empty on the side of the road, the cars of its patrons still parked in the front, while their owners had long since died. A sign above the door displayed "Dina's Diner" in large, once neon letters. Flies buzzed around a near-skeletal carcass of a jackrabbit that sat unattended in front of the doors. The pair stepped over it and entered.

As the pair entered the building the soft hum of a fridge, powered by an overworked generator, could be heard. Mouldy seats with the upholstering coming off accompanied tables made of metal and covered with peeling plastic. The tiles on the floor were chipped and cracking, and in many cases plants had wormed their way through the gaps.

In the corner, by the counter of the diner, the remains of a camp lay stretched on the floor. Three sleeping bags and a bloodstain whose story would never be told.

Adela sat down in a shaded spot in the corner of the diner and pulled three boxes of pre-war food from her bag. She turned to her Pip-Boy and began to play the holotape selection Three Dog had given her prior to her departure from the Capital Wasteland, complete with news headlines from the time and messages from him.

The diner had long been picked clean of any food in its cupboards, but people normally left fridges untouched, or never bothered to search them entirely. Evelyn headed straight for the small stock room in the back and began to search through the three fridges.

"What crap did they put in this food to make it last so long?" Evelyn gagged. She moved the packs of steaks and cheese out of the way as she moved down the fridge racks. Her face beamed with victory as she pulled out a small crate of cooled Nuka Cola.

Adela was examining the food she had taken out of her bag. It was quickly noted by Evelyn that everything was packaged pre-war food. She chose not to mention it and sat down on the opposite side of the table.

"So the 101 patch on your back, that's a Vault, right? You're a Vault Kid?" she took a gulp of Nuka Cola and wiped her mouth, "You don't seem soft enough."

She looked up and nodded, "I grew up in the Vault, but I had to leave when I was 19. After that they eventually opened the Vault up to the world with the hopes of gaining connections with nearby towns. I don't know if slavers got them or they're prospering. Maybe I'll never know."

"Do you mean slavers like Caesar's Legion?"

"I don't know much about Caesar's Legion. They were too busy worrying about their permanent residents to pay attention to me," she pulled out a bound book of pictures from her bag and showed a cluster of buildings overlooked by a large cartoonish boy holding an ice cream, "That's Paradise Falls. It used to be a shopping mall, but after the War it was eventually taken over by slavers. The leader mentioned wanting 'merchandise' from Vault 101 a few times"

"Damn," Evelyn stood up and looked out of the window for trouble. She remembered these parts being safer because of the lack of buildings to scavenge from and towns to raid, but after years of travelling the wastes it became a habit to be on the lookout, "I don't know much about before the War, but society must've been pretty fucked up if people started to enslave other people when it collapsed."

Adela nodded. She stretched before gathering her uneaten food and putting it back into her bag. Evelyn stopped her from leaving the diner, "I think we should camp here for the night. It seems pretty cosy."

"Alright. I've slept in worse places," she laughed to herself.

Gunshots sounded in the distance during the night, but never seemed to get closer, nor move further away. Neither of them were bothered, more often than not you would hear gunshots at any hour of the day. Night just meant you had less of a chance to get dragged in to whatever conflict caused them. Evelyn felt far safer inside the diner than she had felt when inside any NCR town. No one cared to loot or sleep in buildings on the side of the road anymore.

Evelyn stayed awake for an hour longer than Adela before finally becoming too tired to stay awake and on the lookout. The remaining sleeping bag that hadn't been covered with blood was hers to sleep in.

* * *

The midday sun had passed when the left the diner. Evelyn had been right when she said the roads would be empty as travelled across the desert. Only once did the two come across a party of raiders; three that were so high that they began to shoot each other before realising who they were, and by that time Evelyn and Adela were moments away from shooting them. It wasn't long before they arrived in another NCR town.

Evelyn stopped Adela as the town came into view. Light plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the buildings, and bodies had been impaled on trees. She muttered something under her breath while pulling a pair of binoculars from her bag.

"Well shit. Looks like a raiders got this one," she remarked, "Must have been the gunshots we heard last night. I guess we'll just have to go around."

She grabbed Evelyn's arm and pulled her back with surprising strength, "You can't be serious! There could still be people alive in there. Whoever did this, we can't let them move on to another town," Adela responded.

"I don't know, it probably won't be weighing down on my conscience tonight," She shrugged and shook her arm free, "I've done worse than leave a town to be screwed over by raiders."

"And if the next town we find is hit by them?"

"Then clearly they're on a mission to ruin the NCR's day, and I'll go around them and be on my way to The Hub," she gave a forced smile and began to walk away. She quickly stopped dead in her tracks when a bullet missed her head by an inch. Resting atop a crumbling office building was a sniper, with sights set on her.

Amid the destruction, a voice boomed from the town. Evelyn could vaguely make out a woman standing on top of a car wall with a loudspeaker in her hand, "You're dead, Miller. Did you think we wouldn't find you eventually?" she yelled at her, "And your friend can go to hell with you! I mean it, one move and you're both painting the road red."

"Oh fuck," Evelyn whispered in alarm. She felt a cold sweat of fear cover her, "I don't even know who this person is."

"I think the fact she knows who you are matters more," Adela hissed back. She readied herself to run from the town, "Look, I want to get to The Hub in one piece, so listen to me. I'll run that way, you run the other. Cover yourself and run like _hell_ ," her hand moved to a pulse grenade hanging from the zip of her backpack, "I'll try to radio you when I've reached safety, keep your Pip-Boy on this frequency, we can communicate through it."

Evelyn nodded and listened to Adela count down from three. As soon as she hit one she ran as fast as she could away from Adela and the town. The sound of gunfire quickly ensued, clearly following Evelyn much more than they were following Adela. She made an effort to weave her way through cars and trees to create obstacles for the snipers.

A bright flash of green shone from the plasma explosion inside the gates. There was no time to appreciate Adela's throwing skills – Evelyn continued to run. The speakers had failed to turn off and were sounding the screams of anger from the town to the immediate area. Evelyn tried to listen to the conversation, but the adrenaline rushing through her and the heavy sound of her breathing left the voices difficult to understand.

Was she caught in a crossfire? Or had she caused something in her travels, something bad as a consequence of one of her many careless actions while traversing the Mojave. It was possible that it could have been a ghost from her childhood in The Hub, but the thought of someone holding on to a grudge for ten years was ridiculous. Life in the Wasteland was too fragile for that.

But dwelling on what this was about wasn't going to make it go away. Evelyn ran, and it wasn't until she could barely stand to even walk anymore that she stopped running. Her lungs felt as if they were on fire and she dragged herself to a small cave carved into an outcrop of rock. The radio that she had made an effort to listen out for had not made a noise since Adela told her to wait for her to talk to her.

The sudden thought of the woman being dead came to Evelyn. It was possible; they had said that they would kill both of them if they tried to run, and Adela seemed an easy target.

She had only known her for little over two days, but whatever business Evelyn had with these people, Adela didn't deserve to be dragged down with her. Even if they weren't to travel together for long she still wanted to make sure that she got to The Hub alive.

There was no time to rest. Whoever these people were, they would have been following her for some time to know where she was going. A wrong word to someone in a town, or someone listening in, was all it took for someone to know where she was headed. Vegas, with its well-guarded walls and heavily armed securitrons, had removed her caution of others.

Evelyn pulled herself up from the ground and shook the dust from her clothes. If she couldn't find Adela on her way to The Hub, there was still a chance that they could meet while inside. She put her backpack on again and stumbled out of the cave. A small feeling of terror overcame her, but she felt that something much more terrifying was coming.

* * *

 **Given my computer is on the verge of dying for good, an update in the future is looking unlikely. Until next time!**


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